he laid aside his chosen work to serve the political needs of his country. When peace was restored he had paid the price of that service by losing his eyesight. Nevertheless he returned to the work he had chosen long years before. So Paradise Lost is not only one of the world's great poems, not only one of the indestructible glories of English Literature, but it remains to show how a man under crowding difficulties and heavy calamities can, if, as Beowulf said, "his courage holds," carry out a great purpose, planned when outward circumstances seemed more propitious. It is not possible to show by extracts the real magnificence of Paradise Lost. But certain points can be brought out so. First, we can see Milton's supreme gift for using language to paint a picture as vivid to our imagination as a coloured canvas is to our eyes. It would be difficult to surpass his description of Pandemonium when it rose, out of dark nothingness, " like a mist": Anon, out of the earth a fabric huge Rose like an exhalation, with the sound This is a typical instance of Milton's literary magnificence, issuing not only from his imagination, but from his knowledge, borrowed from those who had seen them, of the opulent glories of the East, and his choice of rich and sounding words drawn from Greek and Latin. As a contrast, and as an example of his characteristically English and enduring love of beautiful country, we may take some lines descriptive of the Eden-bower of Adam and Eve, in that Eden where universal Pan Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance which he here described in a passage which recalls a famous painting of Sandro Botticelli. There is, perhaps, no more delicate picture in Paradise Lost than this: the roof Of thickest covert was inwoven shade, Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew Reared high their flourisht heads between and wrought Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay Broider'd the ground, more coloured than with stone His perfect description of nightfall must not be forgotten: Now came still evening on, and twilight gray They to their grassy couch, these to their nests 1 i.e., an inlaid floor, the meaning of the Latin word emblema. His love of natural beauty and of country life never deserted him. Even in one of his political pamphlets, when he was repelling an unjust attack on his personal character, he wrote that he was up and stirring in winter often ere the sound of any bell awake men to labour or devotion; in summer as oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier." In L'Allegro he wrote this appeal: Mirth, admit me of thy crew, Sometime walking not unseen Such was his attitude when he was a young man of about twenty-five; and such it was when, blind from hard work and almost sixty, he wrote his beautiful description of the First Garden of the World. He could not only paint pictures of natural loveliness, but he could draw unforgettable portraits. Here is his description of Satan: he above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent Deep scars of thunder had intrencht, and care From the Council of the Lost Angels, I will take two other portraits: first, Belial's-wily, cunning adviser whose outwardly beautiful appearance and fair speech were no true index to his character: On the other side uprose Belial, in act more graceful and humane; The other is the greatest portrait of the three, that of Satan's principal counsellor, Beelzebub. When we remember that England had just suffered all the turmoil of Civil War, which sundered men, whether good or bad, who might in peaceful times have been friends, and had brought them not only into conflict but into close observation of each other's motives and actions, we wonder whether, in drawing these characters, Milton may not have had some of the great English public men in his mind. Anyhow, Beelzebub is so real and vivid that it is difficult to believe that he was not, in some measure, drawn from life: Beelzebub... than whom, Satan except, none higher sat, with grave And princely counsel on his face yet shone, The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look S. Raphael, "the sociable spirit," Milton draws from an outside point of view: He stood Veil'd with his gorgeous wings, up springing light Flew through the midst of Heav'n. From hence, no cloud, or, to obstruct his sight, Star interpos'd, however small he sees, Earth and the gard'n of God, with cedars crown'd Down thither prone in flight He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky on th' eastern cliff of Paradise He lights, and to his proper shape returns Milton's accounts of the lost Angels are more full of life and fire than any others: this picture of S. Raphael's personal beauty stands midway between their vigour and the tamer descriptions of Adam and Eve, with their rather "schoolmastery" atmosphere of Milton's view of the relations between men and women. Compared with the slight but so human picture in Genesis, these lines are cold and remote: For contemplation he and valour form'd, 1 Maia, the mother of Mercury, messenger of the gods, was the most brilliant of the seven starry sisters in the constellation Pleiades. |